(Forget Al Gore)

Category: Uncategorized

Some people are puzzled by this: I am a writer, yet I still get books aimed at new writers like ones about plot structure, or creating characters, or on dialogue, and so on.

Some books just make sense; I’m self-publishing on the Kindle, so I’m reading many books about that. In a few months, I won’t anymore.

The books about writing techniques also make some sense. First: any writer who thinks that there’s nothing more to learn is just fooling themselves. You can master what you’ve already learned, but there may be new approaches to elements that you’re not yet aware of.

As I was starting to write for the Kindle I often heard author John Locke cited for selling a million books. He did, but what I’ve now learned puts the quality of his books in question:

He paid people – people who never even read his books – to write fake reviews, reviews that spoke glowingly about his work.

Amazon will only display those books that get many high reviews. This gaming of the system prevented books in his genre that may be better quality from being seen. Authors who actually worked on bettering their craft were penalized as a result.

A few years ago we got a black eye thanks to James Fry (he made a work of fiction about living on the street and lied, claiming it to be the truth). Now this.